New Pallet Deck and New Friends

Last week I shared that we were putting in a deck made of pallet boards to fill in a dirt patch in our backyard. You may recall the "before" image:

This week I am thrilled to share that the pallet deck is finished! It took about 2 weeks and many hours of manpower, but it is finally built, sealed, and ready to party. Observe:

I keep looking out at it and smiling. I'm just so pleased with the way my yard looks now! I can't wait to have friends over to help christen the deck, and I'm looking forward to hosting many parties this summer in our newly decked out space (pun intended). 

The building process, as I mentioned last week, was a learning experience for everyone involved. Once the boards were all laid though, I have to say I got a little misty eyed when I looked out back this past weekend to see two neighbors and a close friend joking, laughing, and working alongside my husband to seal the deck and our patio furniture. I remember reading when I was a kid about barn raising, and how all the neighbors would come together to help one family build their new barn. It felt like that. These are the people we share a driveway with, and it was great to realize just how much we've built up our friendships with them since we moved into this place almost 2 years ago. I don't think in my adult life I've ever become friends with my neighbors. At best I've counted them as acquaintances, and at worst I've found them annoying or intrusive and done my best to avoid them. This small-town style community we've become a part of feels like such a rare treasure, especially in an area that's not actually a small town, and I'm so grateful we found this place and have made it our home.

Now, when I say we're friends with our neighbors, I don't mean we're BFF's with all of them, and I don't mean that we moved in and had instant friends the next day. I can't pinpoint exactly when the friendships began to blossom, but I know it was a process. The best thing I did, personally, was open myself up to the possibility of friendship with the people around me. I think of the two kinds of neighbors I mentioned above, I've become most accustomed to the latter, and therefore had a bad taste in my mouth for forging friendly relations with the people who were geographically closest to me (I mean, hey, if they're crazy and suddenly think you're friends, it's kinda hard to steer clear of them when they know where you live). I know I've had a reputation in this neighborhood for being rather anti-social. Actually, I still have a reputation for being somewhat of a party pooper, but I also have the youngest child in the neighborhood, so I'm not feeling real apologetic for asking people to be quiet when they're having a block party under the nursery window. (You know who you are. ;-) The point is, I created that reputation for myself, and then I had to challenge it myself. I had to decide I wasn't going to be anti-social, that I was going to assume my neighbors weren't obnoxious psychopaths and actually give us an opportunity to become not just pleasant acquaintances, but friends. Once I was willing to challenge the negative lessons of my past experiences, I found I had several friends waiting for me. 

So challenging myself and my paradigms turned out to be a very good thing in this case. And now, I challenge you to challenge yourself. Reach out to a neighbor and just be open to possibility. See what happens. I'm not saying force a friendship with someone who doesn't want it, and if you get a bad vibe from the person you probably want to listen to your instinct. But if there's someone nearby you've been thinking seems like a decent human being, maybe strike up an actual conversation with them, you know, beyond the usual mindless BS about the weather and whatnot. Who knows? You may get a new friend out of the deal.

Backyard Deck Project (Not a Tutorial)

Hello again! Man, it's been awhile. I took a little vacation from writing because I felt like I needed a break to reflect and regroup. We've been building a deck out back, and it's amazing because when I say "we" I mean I've done about 10% of the work, yet somehow this project has totally sapped all my mental resources. I spearheaded the design process, which went through several permutations before we finally settled on our current plan: filling in the gaping 160 square feet of dirt that might logically be a lawn with an in-ground deck made of pallet wood. I got to spend about an hour sanding pallet planks after Scoops went to bed one night, but that's the extent of the manual labor I've put into this project. My husband, on the other hand, worked nonstop for over a week, every day immediately when he came home from work and all day on the weekend, usually past midnight, cutting and measuring and trimming and sanding and screwing (ha). He took a break most of this past weekend because we had some damp and windy weather, but that was it for breaks. Our skilled and helpful neighbor has been out there with him most times, and the two of them have been busting their butts to get this thing built. 

It's not finished yet, but here are some progress photos:

Before: Sad, grassless dirt patch.

In progress: 2x4 frame being set into the ground.

In progress: Weed barrier on the 2x4 frame, and sanded pallet planks beginning to be laid.

In progress: More pallet planks laid.

In progress: So close to being finished!

I made the idiot mistake of requesting new mulch be spread around the border before the building began. I didn't realize they were going to move so much dirt! Oh, well. 

As much as I'd love to be out there with them wielding power tools (seriously), I and my boobs are responsible for the wiggly squirmy Scoops. It's been hard feeling like my husband is never home, even though he's right outside. With all the dust and dirt flying around back there, it's not really a great place for a young baby to hang out. It's tested my patience more times than I'd care to admit, and I found myself continually having to just shut my mouth and walk back inside many of the times I went out to ask a question or offer a suggestion. I like to think my husband and I communicate pretty well, but we're still human, and ever since giving birth my hormones have been crazy irregulated, so I tend to escalate more often than I once did (not like I never did before, but I swear it happened less before Scoops arrived). My problem is my innate (perceived) need to be right. I've had to really let go of that and just trust my husband, our neighbor, and the process in general.

The other thing that has made this project mentally challenging for me, aside from feeling like I'm not allowed to be mad at the deck because I asked for it to be built, is feeling like I've also taken away my neighbor from his wife and kids. I've spent a lot of time feeling personally responsible for this guy being away from his family, but at some point I have to recognize that I'm not demanding his participation in this project. He's a grown-ass man and fully capable of making his own decisions. But feeling responsible for the situation caused me to believe that my neighbor's wife was angry or resentful, if not at me then at least at my project, and that perceived tension, coupled with the disconnection from my husband, made me feel for a few days like the deck was ruining my life.

So this project has tested my patience and put a bit of a strain on my marriage and relationship with neighbors. The bittersweetness of that fact is that I'm not alone. I had an opportunity to talk with my handy neighbor's wife, and she admitted she was feeling many of the same things I was, namely that the project was making her feel isolated from her husband. And then, something magical happened: we connected. This woman that I've admired from across the driveway, for her calm parenting of two rambunctious boys, for her time-tested marriage to her husband, for her nearly constant cheerful demeanor, opened up to me and honestly shared her frustration with her husband's absence. Actually, she apologized to me for feeling resentful of the project! Whaaa? You've been feeling resentful of this project? I've been feeling resentful of this project! I had been so mentally worked up over these concerns, and hearing her essentially validate them and offer reconciliation was like taking a weight off my shoulders. We both aired what was bothering us (she clarified that she wasn't actually mad at me), and we each assured the other that things between us were cool. And they are.

We also both recognized that this project has been really great for our husbands. In case you haven't reached this point in your life, you may find that as you get older, you have fewer close friends. Life gets busy, a baby especially will sap all your time and energy, and you get more relaxed about letting go of the people who just aren't contributing to a friendship. This, my lady neighbor and I acknowledged, is the case with our husbands (and ourselves). We agreed that it was nice to see them fostering a friendship, working with their hands, and doing something constructive together. Later, I wrote her a message and let her know that I hope she and I can do the same (at least in the friendship department, but who knows whether construction projects are in our future?). While I've accepted that I have fewer friends now than I did several years ago, I certainly don't think it's a bad thing to cultivate meaningful relationships with quality people throughout my life.

The long and short of it is: I've learned a few things from this process. I've learned that I need to always practice healthy communication techniques with my spouse, and with everyone else, too (and sometimes that means shutting my mouth and walking away until I can speak civilly). I've learned that when my husband wants to take charge of a project he feels passionately about, it's best to step back and let him handle things in his own way. I've learned that being honest and vulnerable with a neighbor or acquaintance can open the door to let friendship in. Most importantly, to be perfectly honest, I've just relearned all these things I already knew. Because sometimes we need a real-life reminder of things we already know, in order to keep the lessons we've learned in the past relevant to our lives today. And if you ask me, being rewarded with a new deck and new friendships is a pretty sweet way to keep this stuff relevant.

Finished project photos coming soon!